1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the construction of baseball and softball bats, and more particularly, but not by way of limitation, to lighter and stronger bat constructions provided by the use of an external composite wrap on a portion of a metal bat frame.
2. Description of the Prior Art
One recent advancement in the design of high performance baseball and softball bats includes the use of an external metal shell formed about, an internal tubular bat frame as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,053,828, by Pitsenberger for “Softball Bat With Exterior Shell”, assigned to the assignee of the present invention, the details of which are incorporated herein by reference.
The prior art has also included a number of other proposals for bat designs including internal and external sleeves, some of which have been constructed from composite materials.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,364,095 assigned to Easton, Inc., discloses a tubular metal bat having an internal fiber composite sleeve.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,022,282 issued to Kennedy et al., discloses a ball bat having an internal metal tube surrounded by an external composite tube along its entire length (see FIG. 3).
U.S. Pat. No. 5,722,908 discloses a composite bat with a metal barrel area.
Upon review of these prior art designs, it will be seen that none of them show or suggest the use of a composite external layer along only a portion of the bat for either the strengthening of the bat at a point of maximum bending moment, or for increasing the external durability of the bat to reduce denting and the like upon impact with a ball.